SIUC to host jazz singer Sony Holland

Holland fronts the SIUC faculty premier jazz act, the New Arts Jazztet, in a concert beginning at 7:30 p.m. on March 5 at McLeod Theater in the Communications Building.

Tickets are $10 for the general public, $5 for SIUC students with proper identification. Tickets are available through the McLeod Box Office. Box office hours are noon to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays and also one hour before each performance. Call the box office at 618/453-3001 to order tickets.

Besides her concert, Holland will offer her expertise to SIUC students with two workshops on March 4. The first is from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Old Baptist Foundation Recital Hall. Holland, consistently praised in Bay Area press as a versatile, accessible singer, will demonstrate several vocal styles, notably Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughn, Astrud Gilberto and Tony Bennett. Students can give join the discussion or try out their own versions of vocal styles.

The second workshop begins at 6 p.m. that day in Altgeld Hall, room 117. This time, Jerry Holland, Sony's professional songwriter husband, joins the workshop as the two give an overview on how to approach independent musicianship as a career. They will discuss recording, booking, CD promotion and publicity.

Holland is an established star in her home-base of San Francisco, playing such venues as Yoshi's (both in San Francisco and Oakland) and the Sunday Jazz Brunch Series held at the Legion Café of the Legion of Honor, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She commands sell-out performances at the Jazz and Blues Company in Carmel and 'Frisco's Jazz at Pearl's, to name a few.

Holland's recent tour schedule includes several Asian destinations, including a three-month stint in the Sirroco in Bangkok, a posh restaurant and jazz club atop one of Thailand's tallest skyscrapers, and dates in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

She has a late June CD release party planned for her latest offering, "Swing, Bossas, Ballads and Blues," in the Rrazz Room in the Hotel Nikko.